My professors.

I am very impressed with all of my professors at CCNM. With so many professors (I have 11) I haven't met one whom I did not like. They are all unique and passionate about their particular field. They do not have research and grant-writing pressures at CCNM and thus are so much cooler and calmer than my undergraduate professors. They are all truly interested in helping us succeed in our journey of becoming Naturopathic Doctors.

I started learning a new language today: the language of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). This form of medicine is the oldest in the world (2750 B.C.E!) and can be very difficult to wrap your head around. To my surprise, my professor is a white, middle-aged man who swears profusely (I guess I was expecting the course to be taught by a stereotypical wise-looking Chinese man :P). He was funny, energetic, and very reassuring (he said that even though most of the material will fly over our poor Western heads, that with time the TCM theories will start to make sense). The best part of the class was that every once and awhile he referred to us as his "young Grasshoppers". :D

Another one of my professors remarked today that we spend up to eleven hours a week with him. He said we are like a big family, because what other family member to you spend eleven solid hours a week with? Then he affectionately exclaimed "Okay my brothers and sisters, let's go!" and he resumed his teaching.

I will close today's post with two interesting health-related things from the day...

- Why do we get sick? It is very important to reflect on the fact that we are constantly surrounded by billions of pathogens (i.e. disease-causing entities), why is that a couple times of year it seems like our immune system has failed and we get taken over by one of these bad guys. So, did we sick because we encountered a super bug? No, we got sick because our immune system was not working at its best because our body isn't functioning at its best. Succumbing to an illness is sometimes the only way our body can force us to rest and start focusing on our physical well-being.

- Have you ever heard of Rider's Bones? Now that I am studying Anatomy, I see the body as a beautiful/y connected puzzle. Every piece fits together so perfectly. We are born with every bone that we will need to become fully functioning adults, but obviously all of the bones are not fully developed and have MUCH growing to do. However, it rare circumstances, our body develops extra bones. People who ride horses full-time (i.e. riders) have their thighs in constant contact with the horse. Eventually the riders' start developing bone in the thigh region as a result of the continuous rubbing of the thigh by the horse's back.